My View: Catskill region should have more than one casino

Thursday

Jun 13, 2013 at 3:45 PMJun 13, 2013 at 3:46 PM

Scott Butera

Last week, Gov. Cuomo submitted a bill to the State Legislature that divides upstate New York into seven regions and authorizes the development of one destination resort casino in each of three of them.

This means the Catskill region, which encompasses Delaware, Orange, Sullivan and Ulster counties, would be eligible for just a single casino license. While we applaud the governor’s leadership and commitment to economic development through tourism for upstate, we think the Catskills should get more than one casino.

Fortunately, key members of the State Legislature, including Sen. John Bonacic and Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther, think so, too. In fact, the entire Legislature previously approved three casinos for the area.

The four-county Catskills region identified in the governor’s bill has an abundance of natural beauty and resources, giving it the potential to become a world-class tourism destination.

It also has the unique benefit among the regions identified in the governor’s bill of being easily accessible by car from the New York Metropolitan region – home to more than 20 million residents. Because of this, we and our competitors think the Catskills can support the development of more than one resort casino.

That said, we think that in order for the region to truly become a tourist destination, more than one casino license is required. Not only will it provide options for gaming customers who otherwise would continue to head to Las Vegas and Atlantic City – or would even choose closer competitor regions such as Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Having more than one casino will create a critical mass of development that will result in the type of sustained economic activity and job creation in the surrounding communities that is so desperately needed. For every one casino development job, there is another job created in the local economy, which results in investments made to local communities in workforce housing, health care, roads and other badly needed infrastructure.

Without a healthy local economy and strong community, the area can never truly be a world-class destination. In Connecticut, where Foxwoods owns and operates the largest destination resort casino in North America, we employ nearly 8,000 people and create more than $1 billion of economic activity each year, and we do it while competing with the second-largest resort casino, just 7 miles down the road.

Currently, Foxwoods has teamed with Muss Development to build another prime resort casino on its 500-acre site adjacent to the old Grossinger’s Hotel in Liberty. We consider this partnership to be an unparalleled match.

We’ve spent the past several years restructuring our organization and strengthening our financial position so that we’re poised for growth. The Muss organization’s 500 development-ready acres 90 minutes from Manhattan is undoubtedly the best possible place for that growth.

The governor and every elected official whom we’ve spoken with have made it clear that they want full-scale destination resorts with all of the amenities, jobs and economic development opportunities that come with them. It’s what we’ve done before and it is exactly what we are prepared to do here.

We are ready to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in our project in Sullivan County and create thousands of jobs for people from throughout the Catskills, including nearby Delaware County.

While we are prepared to compete for a casino license with whomever else seeks one, we think that the best scenario for creating a world-class venue means having more than one large-scale destination resort casino in the area. That will only happen if the bill – ultimately passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor – allows more than one.

The Legislature in the past has approved three casinos for the Catskills because it made sense. It still does.